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Welcome to Tigressland, my own personal little corner of the Internet where I hang out expressing my views about the smaller things in life. No controversy here (I'm saving that for the book lol) just the everyday minutiae that add up to my rather unpredictable, but always fun, life! So pull up a cushion and come chill.....and follow! We bloggers love it when you follow ;-) ~Tigress

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Thursday, 25 September 2014

My daughter, Miss 18, and I had wee
discussion via Facebook ‘tother day about her elderly overlocker (that’s
‘serger’ in North American). She inherited the machine from my mother but of
late it had been misbehaving and she wasn’t too impressed with it (though to be
honest if I was trying to organize four cotton threads at that speed, I’d
probably collapse into a snivelling heap occasionally too.)

“I’ve tried looking it up on the Internet
but it’s so old there’s nothing on there!”

“Honey, I was 13 when Grandma bought that
thing....the Internet wasn’t even invented yet.”

After what must have been a bemused cyber
silence my child replied: “Holy shit, at first it sounds like you're joking but
it just literally wasn’t lol”

Not in 1987....hell, New Zealand only just got
its first mobile network that year....but the Internet as we know it did
officially ‘materialize’ (well as much as thin air can materialize) two years
later in November of 1989 when Tim Berners-Lee got all technical with his Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and the
World Wide Web was born. It all became very handy dandy....just not when I was
a kid.

This got me to thinking about all the other
things that are the norm in my offspring’s life but were mere fantasy in my
childhood.

(This is the peril of being a writer you
know....your brain never just stops at the end of a conversation and moves onto
the next thing like normal people...it keeps nagging at you for hours: “Can we
stop and write about that stuff we were talking about earlier? Please? Can we?
Like now?.....OK after the dishes. What about now? Stop doing that, just
stop....STOP EATING AND WRITE DAMN YOU!)

And here I am....

Now take the Compact Disc for example (a
strand of technology already becoming obsolete); it, and CD players, may well
have become commercially available in 1982 but nothing much reached New Zealand
shelves till several years later. I remember Miss 18, just exiting her own
tweenhood, being enthralled to discover that I never owned my first CD until I
was 18, by which time we could afford something to play the damn thing on.
“That was only three years before I was born!” She gasped. “So what did you
play music on before that? “On tapes dear child and prior to that, records.”

“Wow, you mean like those shiny round black
things??”

I sent her to clean her room before I was
tempted to beat her within an inch of her life with a flaccid album cover.

But other similar discussions have been had
at various points along her developmental span, usually provoked by random
events: I would be mid account of a childhood adventure when she would ask:
“Why didn’t you just text?”

“Because I didn’t have a cell phone.”

“You di....oh wow....so did you like
actually ring people and stuff.”

“Well normal people did, I had a
pathological fear of phones so avoided them wherever possible...but yes,
telephoning was the norm.”

“So did you have email?”

“No”

“A computer??”

“When I was a teenager we got one; we had a
Commodore 64 that played arcade type games and stuff.”

“So like Granddad’s Wolfenstein?”

“No those games needed Windows or something
similar and that (as you would recognize it) didn’t come out until the
90,s....these games were DOS based.”

“Huh?”

“Disc Operating Sys.....you know the black
screen you sometimes see when a computer is booting up? We used to play in
there.”

“I didn’t even know you could DO that!!”

“Live and learn, Ducky”

It was even more entertaining listening to
her discuss these matters of generational difference with my father:

“Your Grandmother...”he would extol,
waggling an earnest finger “you’re grandmother will tell ya clear as
anything...there was none of this being driven to school in shit weather carry on in her day, no no, she used to have to walk to school, even in the
snow and sleet and rain and hail, and it was uphill, she’ll tell ya! Uphill both
ways!!”

At which point my mother would bellow from
the kitchen: “I do bloody not say that you lying old git!” or words to that
effect.

You should have seen when he got to the bit
about the dinosaurs!

Anywho...

I’ve discovered that ultimately one does
have to accept the transition of life as you know it. It happens to us all; little
tell-tale events will regularly remind you that your time of being ‘current’ has
indeed come and gone, or is at least slipping ominously from your grasp....all
those things you found so super important in your youth are now a foreign
language to the next generation.

And if you’re lucky it looks a little
something like this...

I found Miss 18 and her eight year old
sister rummaging around in the garage one day hunting for God knows what when I
heard the eldest exclaim: “OH...MYGOD...look, look at this!!

“What is it?” Lil Blondie’s face crinkled
into nonchalant curiosity.

“It’s my Tamagochi!” my teenager squeaked,
her face aglow with memories of her deep amusement with the tiny toy. “I use to
play on this thing for hours when I was your age!”

“You seriously used to play on THAT!” the
Blonde one snorted. “Didn't you have an iPad or anything?”

Thursday, 18 September 2014

It looked so innocent, sitting there in its
cardboard kennel, peeking out from behind polystyrene with only a tiny black
glint from its shiny bits. Printers can seem that way, innocuous, but so full
of promise....

Until you actually try and use them.

Now electronic devices in general are not
to be trifled with, but printers are just a law unto themselves; you show nary
a moment’s weakness and you’re gone (probably insane). Should you ever need to install
one of these devices, my advice is to approach the situation in a calm fashion,
with stable blood sugar levels and possibly some vodka.

With
this in mind, and supervised by Max, the resident cat, I removed the box

And the polystyrene

And the plastic bag

And the instruction manuals and disc taped
to the plastic bag

And the twenty seven pieces of padding and
blue tape that held everything to every other goddamn thing.

I’ve seen fewer layers on riot police.

But the naked beast looked impressive,
resplendent in its gleaming plasticity and when I plugged it in, little lights
came on so I figured things were definitely looking promising....how could it
go wrong?

I figured, since it could be a wireless
type printer that I would test the theory and have it in the office while my
laptop remained in the dining room. Thus I sat determinedly in front of my
computer with the installation disc in one hand and various sheets of
instructions in the other.

Step One: “Install ink cartridges into the
printer”

Right, yes...I knew that....

Back to the office I went.

With only slight drama and furrowing of
brow I managed to get four cartridges installed into the correct spaces

I returned to my computer prior to reading
the next bit which involved knowing what the screen was displaying after said
cartridges were in place.

I returned once again to the office and checked
that the screen did indeed show the required fields; so far, so good. And
pre-empting further shenanigans, I chose to continue reading whilst still
standing in the office.

“You may now insert the installation disc
into your computer”(Had I returned to the dining room prior to reading this I
swear to God it would have said something else....the writing would have
morphed like a Harry Potter newspaper into: “Please ensure your printer’s
doodah switch is set to neutral” or something)

I returned, once again, to the laptop and
inserted the disc into the drive. The disc congratulated me on purchasing the
product and then asked me if I would like to install it.

What else
do you think I want to do with it?

I click “Install”

“Please ensure you computer is close to the
printer during the installation.”

“Oh for f..........fine, just fine”

I detach my laptop from its auxiliary
speakers, power cable, mouse and USB hard drive and move it into a snugly position
with the prima donna printer.

“You have 10 minutes to complete the
installation before the process will auto-cancel”

Yeah, yeah, all right, don’t get your
megabytes in a twist.

Miraculously, also supervised by the cat,
the installation goes smoothly. While waiting, I get shown various pleasant
pictures including one of a row of five smiling little kiddie faces; no Asian
kid or any child with a serious amount of pigmentation, but hey the little pink
and coffee coloured cherubs were adorable. It's a nice start I guess.

But I digress.

“Installation complete!”

Oooh look, an exclamation mark, they’re as
excited as I am.

Now lemme print something...

“Would you like to print a test sheet”

“Why yes, yes I would” I audibly reply.
There is nothing quite like interacting with home computers I've discovered, to get you talking
to inanimate objects. Well that and using a self service kiosk at the
supermarket.

The printer roared into life with a set of
random staccato noises that sounded something akin to a typewriter having an
orgasm. I waited with childlike anticipation for the paper to exit out the
correct orifice; which, I astutely noted, could only happen if I put some in in
the first place. Fortunately, I achieved this prior to the process reaching the
good bit.

I needn't have panicked, however, all I got
was three dotted, coloured boxes in the top left hand corner of the page. Well
at least the yellow, cyan and magenta were playing the game. What the hell the black
was up to was anyone’s guess.

After unsuccessfully printing two more test
sheets, in a fashion similar to how one repeatedly clicks on a frozen computer
screen to get it to work, I decided to check the ink cartridges again; which
was a very good idea, but will only work if you can get the carriage to sit
anywhere sensible; i.e. not under the side of the printer where it currently
was.

With the reluctance of a man, I consulted
the manual.

“How to change a printer cartridge”

I got this.

“Once the carriage moves to the central position....”

I don’t got this.

Eventually I find the bit in the bowels of
the manual (you know, where they put all the really useful shit) that explains what to do when you need to change a cartridge prior
to being prompted. And it is about this time that I discover that the little
yellow taggy thing hadn't been removed from the black cartridge....which of
course was the cat’s fault, he was supervising.

Thursday, 11 September 2014

Indeed, how is one ‘supposed’ to feel at
such a supposedly pivotal point in life? Overjoyed? Disgruntled? Or just
relieved that you can still pee in the right place and the dementia hasn’t set
in yet?

Maybe I should be more into it, maybe I
should try harder, but this whole transition to middle age has left me rather
nonplussed if I’m honest. I didn’t even bother with a party. No cake, no
candles, no otherworldly amount of alcohol that would make even Keith Richards
raise an eyebrow. Although, to be fair, most of my friends are still happily ensconced
in the Shaky Aisles of New Zealand and at NZ$1200 a pop, I doubt, short of
tickets in the post, that any of them would have accepted the invite anyway.

I opted instead for a cocktail or two and sushi
with my significant other - a man who it must be said did an exceptional job on
the gift front with Queen + Adam Lambert tickets, jewellery and my pride and
joy, a singing stubbie holder for the Aussie AFL team the Fremantle Dockers.
The former elicited squeals of delight, the latter also elicited squeals of
delight and, well, the ring was a damn fine effort too. I mean what more does a
girl need? With this I was truly content.

But I can’t help thinking I should have wanted
to do something more: Scale Everest perhaps, run a marathon, or at the very
least have gotten another tattoo.

But no. I settled, instead, for the annual Facebook
celebrity status where birthday wishes come flying at you from people you haven’t
heard from since probably last birthday and a rigorous game of Rummiking. Which
I won by the way.

I wonder if Adam Lambert felt any of this upon
entering his thirties. I bet he had a party; gold lame and glitter flying
around, hor dourves in the shape of little microphones, Chianti for all and
Jameson’s Irish Whiskey for the inside few.

Really, I surreptitiously slid rather than
boldly stampeded from my dirty thirties into my naughty forties; stealthily ambushed
the next decade like it was a rogue elephant, albeit a quite one, in the corner
of my room. This is not necessarily a bad thing. But. Shouldn't I feel
something more momentous about all of this, more exhilarating even? Shouldn't I
feel more appreciative of the moment? With all the diseases, natural disasters,
political and religious unrest and idiot drivers in the world today, it’s quite
the achievement just to have made it this far! Shouldn't I be smelling a new
sweetness in the air? Smiling at small children more? Or be bursting to donate time
to the elderly and take an interest in politics?

I'm just not feeling it eh.

No, I think I will just have to accept the
fact that I simply don’t give a toss about the aging process, or marking particular increments thereof. Don’t get me wrong, I am a jolly grateful type of lass, but
all this contemplation and analysis has hardly triggered the endorphin response.
Ultimately, I doubt I will remember my fortieth birthday as an epiphany
generating day of wonder. Instead, I feel, it will be fondly looked back upon
for its Japanese cuisine, exquisite company and a sequinned guy wearing heels
that would have me on my ass in five seconds.